Sam’s Club hires ‘experts’ to make video reviews for product pages
Sam’s Club is beginning to add videos with “expert reviews” to product pages for brands wanting to boost credibility and engagement.
Videos on product pages and on retailer websites are nothing new: Amazon listings have had them for years in various forms, such as alongside product photos, in a wide-screen view on premium pages or in search results. Sam’s Club has also featured sponsored videos in search results. With this program, however, the retailer is taking a more active approach on behalf of advertisers.
Sam’s Club announced “expert reviews” on April 16 alongside a host of new features for its retail media network, the Sam’s Club’s Member Access Platform. The other features include added tablets next to demo carts and an influencer program.
To create the new videos, Sam’s Club hires an expert whose niche is within the same space as the product — whether it be cooking, tech, science or health — to talk about the benefits and features in a video that plays on the product page. Harvey Ma, vp and general manager of Sam’s Club Member Access Platform, said the company looks for the best person to represent the product and make claims about it, from different expert perspectives. The retailer began piloting this feature in the fourth quarter, with both private-label and national brand content.
For example, for a video for mattress brand GhostBed, Sam’s brought in a physical therapist for a video in which she talks about how one of the brand’s mattresses keeps your body supported for good sleep or injury recovery.
“There is something to be said, particularly for highly discretionary purchase items like a GhostBed, of the need for some validation, rather than research you’re doing on your own,” Ma said. “Expert-led video is really a way for us to bring together what we would call ‘sight, sound, motion,’ on site, which we know will capture attention, but to also lean a little bit into what’s so hot right now, which is influencer- or expert-led advice.”
The video will show up in the carousel alongside product images while shoppers are browsing the page.
The program is not exclusive to any specific vertical and is open to brands that advertise through the Member Access Platform as part of their overall advertising package.
“We do all the content, we do all the copy, we do all the shooting, we do all the production, all of it,” Ma said. “The process is as customized as you want it to be, and that includes whether you want to shoot that product in bulk with others to help save cost, or we can come to you. We make it as flexible as possible for our clients.”
As with any other advertising feature Sam’s Club or any wholesale club retailer offers, Sam’s Club has the unique perspective of being able to tie every purchase in its stores to a specific member. That makes it possible for the company to determine how advertisements are driving purchases both online and in stores.
“This placement is another element that makes that MAP program more robust and takes advantage of some of the nuances that are different about Sam’s and their members than Walmart, which is more mass appeal,” said Scott Benedict, a former Sam’s Club e-commerce executive. He said Sam’s Club members tend to be higher-income, higher-educated and shop more frequently than Walmart members.
Benedict said adding videos to product pages — whether they are created by the retailer or brand or uploaded by customers as a product review — could also benefit retailers by being aggregated by AI agents that may scrape video content.
The product review video feature is one of several in which Sam’s is leveraging both paid and unpaid customer opinions to drive sales performance for its brand advertising clients.
The company also just announced a creator program in which it has curated a base of influencers who are largely Sam’s Club members. Unlike other creator programs where the retailer itself shares creator content, Sam’s Club is recruiting influencers to post promotional videos for Sam’s Club.
“We know that there is a gigantically growing demographic that is relying on other people’s opinions to tell them what to do and tell them what to buy,” Ma said.
In addition, the company is also leveraging feedback from members through tablets at free sample carts, a continuation of the work it has done with tech company Freeosk at demo kiosks. Every club now has at least one tablet. Shoppers can leave reviews of the products they are trying on the tablets, and those reviews are added to the respective product pages online.
“Syndicated reviews don’t necessarily do a good job of demonstrating that product for a specific retailer,” Ma said. “If you really want to get a rating specific to your club channel, and more specifically here at Sam’s Club, what better way to do that than to actually have member point-of-demo feedback in real time at the demo part itself.”